A Fairy Story
by sparklebean
Summary: When Sherlock Holmes was a little boy he had an imaginary friend, Buttercup the fairy. She comes back into his life many years later and they discover that things aren't quite as simple as they used to be.
1. Prologue

**Before we begin I have a small disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, or fairies, or Peter Pan (it gets referenced to a teensy weensy little bit in this first chapter but that's all)**

**...**

Every little boy has a fantasy, and Sherlock Holmes was no different. At a very early age he had read, or had been read a story about pirates and it had captured his imagination and refused to let go. He had perfected the arts that he believed were worthy of a true pirate; folding himself a pirate hat out of a single sheet of A4 paper, sword fighting with any vaguely pointy object that he could lay his hands on and drawing on his own eye patch using a felt tip pen when his older brother, Mycroft, refused to help him.

He was also the proud owner of a very special plastic parrot, which he had had in his possession since he was four years old, which held some account for the fact that he referred to it as 'Parrot'. If he had been presented with the toy at the grown up age of eight he would have been able to come up with a far more creative and interesting name for his best friend, but Parrot was, and always would be Parrot to him.

When he was very little his obsession with wanting to be a pirate had been endearing, but at the age of eight it was beginning to grow tiresome, to everyone except Sherlock. It was Mycroft in the end that came up with a 'brilliant' plan to try and gently rid his brother of his unrealistic expectations of life.

"What is it?" Sherlock had asked when Mycroft had given him a neatly wrapped gift after dinner one evening.

He didn't understand, there was no reason for his brother to be giving him a present, it wasn't his birthday.

"What do you think it is?" Mycroft had replied, he was always encouraging Sherlock to think, well, almost always. If Sherlock had encountered a pirate-related problem during his vivid and imaginative adventures aboard the good ship HMS Bed, also named before Sherlock's imagination had properly kicked in, then his brother was reclusive and often vague in his solution to whatever crisis Sherlock needed to rescue his crew from.

Sherlock put the present on the floor and crouched down in front of it, he felt it and weighed it in his hands, examining it for longer than was necessary to work out what it was that Mycroft had wrapped so carefully, "A book?" He asked, looking up at his brother with wide eyes.

Mycroft smiled, as he always did when Sherlock worked something out correctly and nodded.

"About pirates?" Sherlock bit his lip slightly, not taking his eyes off of Mycroft. Over the past few months had begun to get the feeling that his brother did not approve of his future career choice.

"A little bit about pirates." Mycroft confirmed.

He only stayed for long enough to watch his little brother excitedly rip the wrapping paper to shreds to reveal the copy of _Peter Pan _that Mycroft had found in his own collection of children's literature that, for some reason or another, he had not got rid of. Then Mycroft and Sherlock went their separate ways, Mycroft had homework that he needed to get on with and Sherlock had a story to read, and as it was about pirates, he hoped that there was more about them in the tale than his brother had said there was, there was only one place where he could even begin to think about reading it.

HMS Bed.

Mycroft's aim of allowing Sherlock to read _Peter Pan _had been to quell the hope his brother harboured of becoming a pirate. He had anticipated that Sherlock would learn that every pirate would meet an untimely death and their lives were not as enjoyable as Sherlock had led himself to believe.

Instead, the outcome had been entirely different, much to Mycroft's silent disappointment. Sherlock had decided that he was a 'better' pirate than Captain Hook and his shipmates, and dedicated even more of his time to proving so. More worrying though, from Mycroft's perspective, was the new aspect of his brother's games that stemmed directly from his reading _Peter Pan_.

Sherlock began to believe in fairies.

In every other sense, Sherlock was a very logical, intelligent boy and for some reason, one which Mycroft couldn't work out, something had clicked in his mind to tell him that it was entirely possible for tiny, winged creatures whose voices sounded like the tinkling of bells to actually live on this planet.

On some occasions, the crew of HMS Bed would go on day long adventures, roaming out of doors in the hope that a fairy, or better still a fairy dwelling, would be found. Obviously, Sherlock returned disappointed from each quest but he never lost the quiet hope that they were out there, at least, not until five months passed since Mycroft told him that he needed to grow up and that fairies did not exist, they were invented for story books and should stay there, he had no evidence except the faith in his heart to prove this accusation false.

"Fairies aren't meant to be in your head, Sherlock, you're eight now. You have to look at the world with a more realistic outlook."

This revelation deeply hurt Sherlock, and he seldom bothered to ask Mycroft for help in his games any more, he never invited his brother on another fairy hunt, although they would have been just as fruitless with or without Mycroft's presence.

For four precious months, however, the HMS Bed had an honorary crew member in the form of Sherlock's imaginary fairy companion, Buttercup, whose magical fairy dust could defeat an entire army of monstrous enemies with just a tiny dusting from her secret source.

His bedroom soon became what looked like a shrine to glitter and Mycroft controversially binned Buttercup's source of fairy dust, as good as killing the fairy. Sherlock had sniffled to himself, fighting tears, as he cleared up the sparkly mess that had settled on every surface in his room in the months that he and Buttercup had collaborated, sailing the seas and defeating armies and other pirate crews in an attempt to gain more treasure than they already possessed.

It was when he surveyed his room, finally cleaned and free from the magical silver sparkles that he had grown so used to after living with the room covered in glitter for four months that the illusion he had created for himself broke. He wasn't going to be a pirate, he never was going to find fairies however hard he looked and, no matter how hard he tried, he could never make Buttercup really come alive.

If only he could see her, she couldn't exist. According to Mycroft, anyway.

Sherlock tried to forget about those magical months, from first reading _Peter Pan_ to Buttercup's demise there were almost seven of them overall, the time that he believed in fairies. He forced himself to grow up, to see the world in the way that a man should, and devoted his time into finding other interests to fill his time. His love of science, of fact, grew from the devastation he had felt when Mycroft had coldly informed him that there was no such thing as fairies, or magic. He taught himself to only remember important things, _true_ things that would not distract him as his imagination once had.

But somewhere, in a tiny corner of his Mind Palace, he still believed in these magical beings, even though it was a place he had long forgotten the way back to.

Because once you start to believe in fairies, you can never truly stop believing.

Not once the magic has taken hold of your mind and attached itself to every fibre of your being.

And Sherlock Holmes was not any different.

He had just stopped thinking about fairies, he had no need to any more.

Well, that was what he thought.


	2. Buttercup Returns

John had only been out of 221B for about fifteen minutes before Mycroft abducted him. They had needed milk, because Sherlock wanted to see what would happen if he poured it on the floor. In other words, he was bored and would rather have an argument with John than do nothing.

He had given Sherlock all of the things that he would need to clean up the mess that his 'experiment' had caused and stormed out, hoping that he had enough change in his pocket to pay for four pints of milk. Sadly, he knew that Sherlock probably wouldn't bother to even attempt to begin blotting the worst of the milk off of the floor using kitchen roll, actually, he would probably try and make it worst by adding orange juice or marmite to the milk to observe what smell it gave off.

Thankfully he had £3.03 in his pocket, which not only meant that he could buy one litre of milk, it meant that he could take advantage of the two for £3 offer as well. At least when Sherlock inevitably did something experimental to the milk in the fridge, John could rest assured that he had some safely tucked away in the cool box that he would definitely be borrowing from Mrs Hudson to keep in his room as a precaution against other milk-related incidents, namely running out.

The car had drawn up alongside him as he ambled slowly back in the direction of Baker Street, there was no need to rush and it wasn't a long walk. Upon seeing that it was sleek, black and expensive-looking he didn't even bother to wait for Anthea to get out and open the door for him, he just got in.

When being abducted, John had learnt to expect the unexpected and not to bother trying to work out where he was going as Mycroft would always choose somewhere different. On this occasion, it was a pleasant surprise to recognise the direction the car was heading in.

Unfortunately, this meant that it would be a more 'formal' meeting as John was only summoned to Mycroft's private office for the most important of matters.

...

"Is Sherlock, to the best of your knowledge, clean, John?" Mycroft asked, as soon as the door clicked shut behind John. He indicated for John to sit down and he did so, trying to work out exactly what the question meant and how best to answer it.

"Well he had a shower yesterday if that's what you were worrying about."

Mycroft faked a laugh, "You know that isn't what I mean."

"It was between that and drugs..."

"So you picked the easier topic."

"Yes."

"Let me rephrase the question then: is Sherlock, to the best of your knowledge, using drugs?"

"No, I don't think so. He smokes every now and then but he mainly just uses nicotine patches."

"Oh," Mycroft frowned, and it was then that John realised that something was wrong. Something was wrong with Sherlock. He tried to think of what his friend could've done in the fifteen minutes that he had been out of the flat for before Mycroft abducted him, he couldn't have taken drugs in that time, for sure. Not even Sherlock would do something like that just to escape from having to clean up four pints of milk from the floor.

John thought harder, if Sherlock was taking drugs he, of all people, would know. He would have worked it out, he was sure of it...well, he hoped he was.

"What's happened?" John asked eventually.

Mycroft looked slightly awkward, and John leaned forwards in his seat a tiny bit, "What is it?" He continued, when he wasn't given an answer straight away.

"I like to...check up on my brother from time to time," Mycroft began.

"You have CCTV in the flat?" John interrupted.

"Naturally," Mycroft shrugged, hoping that John wouldn't take it as a big deal even though he knew that he would, "I only check it occasionally though, and when I did so today I noticed several things that may be considered abnormal even for Sherlock."

"Great," John sighed, "Let's hear it, then."

"Firstly, I was greatly surprised to see him cleaning the floor. A quick check informed me that you were not in the flat, I then noticed that my brother was talking to himself."

"That's not unusual. He talks to me when I'm not there from time to time."

"I know. But, please do tell me, when did Sherlock start referring to you as 'Buttercup'?"

"I can assure you, Sherlock has never, ever called me Buttercup."

"Of course," Mycroft sighed, as if whatever it was that he had to say next was somewhat embarrassing, and painful to retell, "Sherlock used to have a friend called Buttercup."

"Sherlock used to have a friend?"

"An imaginary one when he was eight, yes."

"Called Buttercup?"

"To the best of my knowledge she was a fairy."

"And you think that Sherlock's started doing drugs and has started seeing this imaginary fairy-friend again?"

"I'm not quite sure exactly what has brought it on, but I do believe that he was addressing his old friend, yes."

"And what do you want me to do about it?"

"I want you to go back home and inform my brother that fairies do not exist. Then I think that you should check the flat, including Sherlock's room, for any evidence of drug-related activity. After that I suppose you could try to talk to him about his 'Buttercup', although he will more than likely just ignore your questions."

"Fantastic. I only went out to get milk."

"The car will take you back. It's waiting in the usual place."

John got up to go and was halfway out of the door when a thought crossed his mind, he turned around, "What do I do if he actually is talking to a fairy?"

Mycroft smiled, but John noticed his eyes didn't light up, they never did, "You and I both know that he isn't."

Satisfied, John strode out of Mycroft's office and, while his mind was busy thinking of things that he could say to Sherlock when he got back, 'Hey! Your brother thinks you've gone mad and started talking to fairies', his feet took familiar steps as they walked him back to the car that would take him home.

...

For once, Sherlock decided to actually be a little bit helpful for once and set about clearing up the milk that now seemed to have spread halfway across the kitchen. He could see why John had got annoyed, but he wouldn't admit it.

The action of scrubbing, which he very rarely did, suddenly brought back a wash of memories of a sad little boy, removing all of the magic from his room, and scrubbing it out of his heart.

His lips moved without him even thinking about what he was saying, "Are you still out there, Buttercup?"

When he was younger, the voice in his head that he had created for his little friend would reply 'Yes! Now, board the good ship Bed.' but he wasn't younger anymore and the silence echoed through his ears.

But then a sound, like gently tinkling bells, made him sit up and inspect the room in alarm. He must have imagined it, made it up.

He knelt back down on the floor and continued scrubbing when he heard the noise again, "No," He whispered.

To which a light, girlish and very familiar voice replied, "I knew you still believed in me."

"You're in my head, I made you up." Sherlock muttered, still believing that he was talking to himself.

"No you didn't," The little voice sang, "Look, here I am."

So Sherlock looked, and right before his, almost, disbelieving eyes a tiny figure materialised. She was perched upon the kitchen roll, her tiny legs dangling down in the way that Sherlock's would if he were to sit on his bedroom windowsill. His eyes grew wide as he realised that he recognised every millimetre of the tiny fairy, the delicate face, porcelain skin, chestnut brown hair that curled in exactly the same way as his, the bright yellow dress 'made from real buttercups' he remembered her telling him once and, best of all, the wings that were so thin, so beautifully fragile that he could gaze at them for hours on end.

The wings that he always thought of as being brushed with gold.

"You are real," He breathed, "But Mycroft said..."

Buttercup giggled, the sound of tinkling bells caressed Sherlock's ears again, "You shouldn't believe everything your brother tells you."

"Where have you been all this time?"

"Watching you mostly, keeping you safe, again, mostly. It's a hard job being your guardian fairy."

"Do you mean that everyone has a guardian fairy?"

"No. We only get assigned to children who believe in fairies, and then we never leave."

"Does John?"

"No, I checked when you first met. It's difficult to tell, though, most of us choose to stay invisible for the majority of the time."

"Why now? Why did you choose to reveal yourself to me again?"

"Because you remembered."

"Ah, most people forget."

"Yes. If I didn't know you I would have thought that you had forgotten me forever too."

"Are you going to turn invisible again?"

"Do you want me to?"

"No. I think John might like to meet you."

"It will be a shock."

"It shouldn't be, he's lived with me for just over a year now."

"He doesn't believe in fairies, Sherlock, he won't be expecting it."

"Who would?"

"You didn't seem too startled."

"I know you."

"True," Buttercup grinned mischievously, "I think that I could have some fun with John before you tell him about me properly, do you want me to?"

"What kind of 'fun' are you talking about?"

"Oh, just what used to do with your old cat, flying just inside his peripheral vision, sprinkling fairy dust on his head..."

"Won't that kill him?"

"Fairy dust was only a dangerous weapon in our adventures, silly, it's pretty harmless unless I want to do good with it."

"Could you finish cleaning the floor for me?"

"Just this once."

"Thank you, it's nice to have you back."

"It's nice to be back, even though I never left."

Sherlock watched, his eyes grew wide again as he watched his oldest friend sprinkle golden, sparkly fairy dust across the kitchen floor. A few moments passed, and the dust disappeared, revealing a perfectly clean floor underneath. He laughed to himself, he was going to enjoy watching Buttercup wind John up.

And John wasn't going to believe it when he was finally told the truth. Sherlock hadn't been so excited about something that wasn't a murder since he last used to talk to Buttercup and believe in the impossible.

It was then that he heard the recognisable footsteps of his other very good friend, John Watson, as he made his way up the stairs with the new milk. He had taken his time, and was probably still a bit annoyed with Sherlock, but Sherlock didn't care.

He had Buttercup back, and he couldn't quite describe how he was feeling.

John, on the other hand, was in a bad mood. Mycroft had given him a lot to do and he hated having to perform 'drug busts' on Sherlock's room. They always ended in disaster. Then there was this business about Sherlock talking to fairies, he would have to look into it but he really couldn't be bothered. It was a Saturday and he wanted to relax.

It was quite amusing to think of Sherlock having an imaginary friend, though, he would quite like to know what he used to tell it, and why he had started talking to it again now.

Maybe he would enjoy investigating this little problem for Mycroft, there was the potential for him to have a lot of fun with it.


	3. Mind Games Begin

The frustrated crease of John's eyebrows told Sherlock that he had just had a rather displeasing meeting with someone, probably Mycroft. That wasn't particularly helpful, when John was in a mood like the one he appeared to be in now it was impossible to impress him and Sherlock could never quite manage to leave him gawping in awe in the way that he sometimes did when he was in a good mood and Sherlock had said something spectacular.

"You've cleaned the floor."

That was the first thing John said upon entering the flat and making his way into the kitchen, he was thirsty and desperate for a cup of tea. This indicated, to Sherlock anyway, that he hadn't been intending to talk straight away, otherwise he would have said hello or hi, one of the two.

Sherlock wondered what was bothering his friend, something was on his mind. It was definitely something that Mycroft had said, he just wasn't sure what that something was.

"As ever your observational skills never cease to amaze."

John grunted in response to the dig at his intellect and went about the process about making himself some tea, he decided not to bother making Sherlock one as any type of caffeine, however weak, would probably detrimental to Sherlock's current mental state. Thinking about it, Sherlock didn't seem as strange as he had done on that CCTV footage that Mycroft had shown him. He wasn't talking to himself, or his 'fairy friend' for that matter, which was an improvement to however long ago it was...about twenty minutes John estimated.

"What did Mycroft want?"

John was just taking his first sip of tea when Sherlock asked the question. He swallowed the hot liquid quickly, ignoring the slight burn on his tongue so that he could answer, "He was wondering if you'd started doing drugs again."

The CCTV, that old trick, Sherlock had almost forgotten about that. Everything made sense now, Mycroft must have watched his brother chattering away to his 'imaginary' friend, remembered the events of all those years ago, the pirates, the fairies and, later, the drugs. He would have panicked.

The idea of Mycroft panicking always made Sherlock's mouth twitch skywards in an unconscious smirk; he was normally quite unaware that he was doing it.

"Why are you smiling like that?" John asked, unnerved.

"Like what? I'm not smiling."

"Yes you are, well, you were. You just did a creepy little smirk that I haven't seen you do before."

"Did I? Oh, that's interesting. I'll have to watch out for it in the future. So," Sherlock fixed his eyes on John and forced himself not to think about Mycroft under any circumstances, which was going to be difficult due to their topic of conversation, "Tell me about your meeting with Mycroft."

John took a deep breath, this hadn't been part of his plan, he had wanted to quietly observe Sherlock's behaviour and then rope Mrs Hudson in to help him search the flat for any suspicious substances when his friend went out at some point in the next few days.

"He wanted to know if you were clean. If you were taking any drugs."

"And you told him?"

"The truth. That you've mainly been sticking to the nicotine patches but you've not fully given up smoking yet."

Sherlock looked affronted, "Yes I have."

"Come on," John scoffed, "We both know that Mrs Hudson caught you down by her bins a couple of weeks ago. Two weeks are not long enough to give up a nicotine addiction."

"May I ask why Mycroft was so interested in my current welfare when it comes to addictive substances?" Sherlock asked, quickly changing the subject from the embarrassing episode that had ended in Mrs Hudson snatching his first cigarette in months straight out of his hands, throwing it to the floor, putting it out with her shoe and then demanding that he didn't subject himself to a long and painful death by lung cancer.

Reluctantly, Sherlock had agreed, but not before John had got wind of what was going on and turned up out of nowhere, the flat, to join Mrs Hudson's anti-smoking campaign.

John didn't know what to say, he wanted to get some more information on Sherlock's old 'friend' Buttercup, but then it would be detrimental to his plans if he were to do so.

"Quite quickly please. I do happen to have other important things that I wish to do today."

"Oh," John paused, "Nothing...he was just curious."

Fairies, Sherlock concluded, that meeting had included at least a mention of Buttercup and the role she had had in Sherlock's childhood. That was why John was being so sketchy with the details; he didn't know where to begin, wasn't sure how Sherlock would react, or both.

It was then he noticed a very familiar something, or someone, hovering just above John's left ear. Glittery gold sparkles of fairy dust were floating gently down towards his shoulder, catching the light and glimmering so beautifully as they fell. He suppressed a grin, not wanting to attract John's attention to the little fairy who was about to start her mind games with him. Obliviously, John took another sip of his tea.

Buttercup darted forwards, expertly positioning herself so that she was just in the corner of John's peripheral vision. The times that she had delighted the young Sherlock with this performance had made her so good at it that she barely had to think about it anymore, she knew how many different people would twitch their heads to spot something that only just made it into their line of vision and John was no exception.

John, catching a glimpse of Buttercup's yellow dress, whipped his head around. The fairy disappeared into thin air and, as John began to massage his cricked neck, Sherlock felt a tiny weight land on his shoulder so that they could watch the final act together.

"What is it?" He asked, he sounded concerned and bemused to John, as if he didn't have a clue why John had needed to move his head so quickly and had injured his neck in the process.

"I thought I saw something," John mumbled, still massaging his neck firmly, "Cricked my neck."

"I didn't see anything."

John gave up on his neck, it would feel better in a minute or two, and rubbed his eyes, "Maybe I'm just tired."

"Maybe," Sherlock answered even though he knew that it was barely midday and that John had had an early night last night. He was definitely not tired. Merely confused.

"I think I'm going to just drink this and watch some telly for a couple of hours, want to join me?" John indicated to his still full cup of tea and nodded in the direction of their shared television.

"Crap daytime telly?" Sherlock asked, even though he had already decided that his day was one to be spent John-watching as Buttercup continued to wind him up.

"Mm hm." John said, turning on the television and then navigating to the channel he wanted to watch with the remote always required his full attention.

"The Jeremy Kyle Show?"

John knew that this constant parade of wailing idiots was Sherlock's 'favourite' show and took it upon himself to record the series so that they could watch the episodes back without missing anything.

Neither man actually liked the show, Sherlock just pretended to because it was the most entertaining of all the mind-numbingly dull programmes that were on offer and sometimes he was treated to a little puzzle when it came to 'who's the father' or 'my cheating wife' problems and John just enjoyed sitting back, not having to think about anything, safe in the knowledge that Sherlock wasn't doing anything remotely illegal or dangerous.

Several episodes later John decided that he was quite hungry and fancied some lunch, he offered to make Sherlock a sandwich and was pleasantly surprised when the offer was accepted. It was always good to watch Sherlock eat something as the next few days John would be free to come and go as he pleased, assured that he wouldn't arrive home to find his flatmate lying on the floor, passed out from ignoring the hunger pangs that he must, surely, feel.

Buttercup had spent most of her time in her favourite place, resting on Sherlock's shoulder, her head resting against his neck and her legs folded up underneath her. Occasionally, whenever she felt him begin to fidget with boredom, as he often did when watching television, she would leave her comfortable position behind her, flutter over to John and pause for a couple of moments just in the corner of his eye so that she was just a yellowy blur before darting back to the safety and familiarity of Sherlock's neck.

Over time she began to get braver and more daring, finally mustering up enough courage as he opened the fridge door to find the margarine to fly up over the top of his head and seat herself right on the tip of his nose. The force of the air that came before his swatting hand gave her some warning, and she was long gone before hand made contact with nose.

She was almost back to Sherlock by the time John was rubbing his nose in confusion, wondering what on earth was causing him to see strange yellow blurry things from time to time. It was a pity he hadn't trained as an eye surgeon, he mused, then he would have been able to diagnose himself.

...

The afternoon drifted into the evening, and the evening seeped effortlessly into the night. John and Sherlock moved quietly around the flat, not speaking much and just going about their business. Every so often, when he was least expecting it, Buttercup would launch another surprise attack on John to keep Sherlock amused.

John had never seen Sherlock quite so happy, it was very odd, he reminded himself that he would have to keep an eye out for any evidence of drug taking. With every unexplainable laugh he grew more and more suspicious about Sherlock's recreational activities.

He was also growing more and more worried about his eyes, but he knew that he was working at the surgery tomorrow so he could get Sarah to take a look at them. He didn't dare ask Sherlock to examine them, although he might be able to make an accurate diagnosis John didn't want to risk his only two eyes with a man who he was suspecting to be under the influence of drugs.

At about half past nine he gave up on the day, it was time for bed, he bade Sherlock goodnight and received no reply. He must have been thinking.

The short walk up the stairs to his bedroom felt even longer when he was tired and John couldn't wait to shut his eyes and rid himself from the annoying yellow blurs that had been plaguing him all day.

It was only when he was taking off his jumper to put on his pyjama top that he noticed it, the fairy dust. As he pulled the woolly garment over his head and sat on his bed wearing just his shirt and pyjama trousers the dust took off in all different directions, spiralling through the air as it free fell to the ground.

"I must be seeing things," He murmured to himself, "God, I need to sleep."

He didn't think any more about it as he finished changing his clothes, shuffled sleepily to the bathroom to clean his teeth or even when he eventually snuggled himself down in his bed. He didn't have any real reason to worry yet, it was probably just exhaustion playing with his mind.

He ignored the fact that he had no reason to be exhausted, and also that he wasn't. He didn't want to think about what else his 'sightings' might be a symptom of.

It would be more worrying for him when he woke up in the morning and discovered the golden glittery dust was still all over his bedroom floor.

Downstairs, Sherlock chuckled heartily to himself as Buttercup reported back on her final mind game of the day. She would try some of her more daring, and more out of practise, stunts tomorrow.

Sherlock couldn't wait.


	4. Glitter

The glitter was the first thing John really noticed when he woke up, apart from the realisation that he was conscious for the day. Confused, he dragged himself out of bed and stared at the floor for a minute or two, trying to think how it could have got there. Unable to think of any reasonable conclusion he grabbed his dressing gown and shuffled off to go and have a shower, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Sleep well?"

Sherlock was sat up at the kitchen table, seemingly not doing anything, just waiting for John to come and have breakfast. That was something Sherlock never did.

"Um, yeah, thanks." John murmured, opening the fridge. He gazed blankly at the back of the fridge for a little while as he tried to work out what it was that Sherlock was up to before deciding it would probably be better to just ask him what he was doing. Turning around, he opened his mouth in preparation for his question.

Then he saw it again.

That yellow blur.

Distracted, he tried to follow it as it disappeared somewhere to his left. After spinning around in circles until he became incredibly dizzy and had to stop he realised that Sherlock was sniggering at him.

"What?" John asked.

"I think I should be asking you that question." Sherlock said, still smirking at him.

"Should you? As you're not normally conscious at this time of the morning unless you're on a case I think I'm entitled to some confusion." John countered.

"You've just spent the last few minutes spinning around the kitchen." Sherlock stated, clearly still amused.

John faltered, unable to come up with a good response. Sherlock was right, he had just spent the last few minutes spinning around the kitchen, but that wasn't the point. Sherlock was always right, sometimes, John thought, it was good for him to be wrong.

"That's true but..." John began hesitantly.

"But what?" Sherlock interrupted.

"I was testing my eyes." John explained.

"It didn't look like you were testing your eyes." Sherlock said.

"I was...I keep thinking that I'm seeing..." John was flustered, he didn't really want to tell Sherlock that he thought he was seeing things.

"Seeing what?" Sherlock butted it, before John could decide whether he was going to tell him the truth or not.

"Uh, nothing." John said, turning around and busying himself by trying to find something he could eat for breakfast in the fridge.

"Clearly you aren't seeing nothing," Sherlock responded, "otherwise you would be blind and I know for a fact that you aren't."

"Right," John said, grabbing a yoghurt pot from the fridge, shutting the door and leaving the kitchen to find his shoes, "I'm going to work."

"You're going to be two hours early." Sherlock called from the kitchen, causing John to sigh to himself. He didn't want to leave so early but he was sick of Sherlock questioning him. At least he would be able to sort out his desk with all the spare time he was going to have.

"I've got stuff to do." John called back.

"You're still wearing your dressing gown." Sherlock pointed out.

John looked down. Sherlock was right, he wasn't dressed for work, still had his dressing gown tied around his waist and had slippers on his feet. Slippers.

"I was going to get dressed before I went." John muttered to himself, not bothering to reply to Sherlock properly. He rolled his eyes as he walked back up the stairs to his room to get dressed. And then he saw it again. The yellow blur.

He stopped, blinked hard and looked around, trying to look out for the yellow blur again. When it didn't appear again he continued up the stairs, relieved. By the time he was deciding what to wear he had almost forgotten about the yellow blur, distracted by the fact that he was running out of socks. Dramatically so.

He would have to ask Sherlock what was going on with that, it was probably him 'borrowing' them for some reason or another.

As he left the flat he was too caught up in his own thoughts to properly take in the rare sound drifting through from the kitchen.

Sherlock laughing.

The laughter continued long after John had disappeared out of the door for the day.

Eventually, Sherlock stopped laughing when Buttercup took it upon herself to pull out several strands of hair from the top of his head. So amused by John's befuddlement he had been that he had almost forgotten about her. Almost.

"That hurt!" he cried, jumping up and swatting above his head, the fairy expertly dodging out of the hand's sweeping path while resisting the temptation to giggle at the way Sherlock had reverted back to his eight year old self upon the infliction of his least favourite kind of pain.

"That was the point," Buttercup replied, rolling her eyes at Sherlock to show that she thought he had been growing inattentive throughout the morning, his attention taken by the latest attack on John. He got the point, recognising the old signal, and regarded her carefully, she grinned mischievously at him before continuing, "we have work to do."

...

Eating and working did not mix, not in Sherlock's world, anyway. Having actually eaten breakfast that morning, not thinking that he was going to be doing very much, he was stretched out on the sofa, asleep, when John got back from work in the late afternoon.

Buttercup and Sherlock hadn't stopped all day, not for longer than it took to survey their hard work proudly anyway, as they had something very special planned for John's return home later that day. The entire floor space of 221B was covered in glitter, mostly fairy glitter, although Sherlock had managed to get his hands on several commercial sized tubs of the stuff to add to the overall effect.

This resulted in an ankle deep sea of glitter, and what was left was then sprinkled on whatever surface was available, first the kitchen, then the living room, Sherlock's bedroom got a coating and the bathroom was left sparkling and glistening when Sherlock had decided that layers of shampoo and shaving foam would add to the overall atmosphere.

That left John's bedroom and the stairs.

Sherlock left the stairs to Buttercup as these were the least interesting of the two (and a certain amount of magic was needed to ensure that Mrs Hudson wouldn't be able to clean up the 'mess') and proceeded to John's room.

It is fair to say that he got a bit carried away, along with every spare surface he also took it upon himself to leave a layer of glitter between John's mattress and bed sheet, between the sheet and the duvet and also poured as much as he could into the duvet and each of the pillows. The wardrobe and chest of drawers weren't ignored either, they both got more than their fair share of glitter so that when they were finished with John's clothes were saturated in the sparkly stuff.

With more glitter on top of and around them still.

By the time Sherlock and Buttercup had finished their glittery task the flat looked like the roof had been lifted to allow a very, very sparkly snowstorm to fall inside. But that was not all, Sherlock did his best at painting the door to the flat buttercup yellow, which did not work very well as his hands were covered in glitter.

He had needed some expert help from Buttercup to clean himself up, then he had retreated to the sofa and fallen asleep with his guardian fairy still whizzing around the flat, adding an extra layer of glitter to anywhere she thought needed a bit more.

This was what was going on as John came to the door, bemused at its sudden yellowness he frowned at it before noticing that it was also smeared with glitter. As he turned the key in the lock something on the floor caught his eye and he looked down. There was glitter all over the floor, stamped into the carpet, which was now flecked with yellow paint, and yet again he could not come up with a logical explanation as to why it was there. He pushed the door open and walked into the flat.

"Sherlock, I'm ba- oh!"John's cry of hello was interrupted as a small sea of glitter cascaded over the threshold and over his feet. When the initial surprise subsided slightly he was able to look around and take in the scene of devastation properly.

He thought it looked like a glitter bomb had exploded very violently somewhere nearby. Sherlock, it seemed, had been very bored today.

John waded through the ankle deep glitter into the living room, where Sherlock was lying; fast asleep, on the now very glittery sofa.

"What's going on?" John demanded, talking to the still sleeping form of his friend.

Sherlock did not respond, but John could not tell if this was because he was asleep or that he was just pretending to be asleep. As he was a very good pretender it was hard to tell when he was pretending and when he wasn't.

"Sherlock!" John grabbed his friend's shoulder and shook it, so that he had no choice but to wake up (or pretend to).

"Yeah?" Sherlock mumbled sleepily, blinking as he came to.

"What's happened to the flat?" John asked, gesturing at the once relatively tidy room which now had become a shrine to glitter.

Sherlock's eyes widened in shock as he took in the scene, murmuring the word "interesting" to himself several times.

"You didn't do this?" John said, although he was very surprised, Sherlock had been his one and only suspect in this matter.

"No." Sherlock shook his head, "I was asleep."

"All day?" John had known Sherlock's sleeping patterns to be odd, but he very rarely slept through a whole day.

"I suppose so." Sherlock answered, still sleepily, he faked a yawn, which John took to be a real yawn and didn't think any more of. He was distracted by the beeping of his phone.

IS SHERLOCK OK? HE HASN'T BEEN IN CONTACT AND I'VE TEXTED HIM FIVE TIMES ABOUT A TRIPLE HOMICIDE.

-GL

John thought for a moment, before replying:

APPARENTLY HE SPENT THE WHOLE DAY SLEEPING. HASN'T SAID ANYTHING ABOUT TRIPLE HOMICIDE. FLAT COVERED IN GLITTER.

-JW

"What's this about a triple homicide, then?" John asked, looking up from his phone to find Sherlock picking up handfuls of glitter and allowing them to flutter back down to the floor again from between his fingers.

"Is Lestrade texting you now?" Sherlock groaned, "It sounded boring so I went to sleep."

"But you like homicides." John protested.

"Not today, maybe tomorrow." Sherlock said offhandedly, waving his hand to show that he couldn't care less.

"So what about the flat?" John continued, with the currently more pressing matter.

"What about it?" Sherlock replied, although John did not respond as Lestrade had sent him another text.

IT'S A TRICKY ONE, HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

-GL

John had nothing else of particular importance to say to Lestrade, so he sent a short reply saying something along the lines of trying to get Sherlock to look into it tomorrow.

"What about it?" Sherlock repeated, growing impatient with John as he had not replied to his question instantly.

"It's going to take all night to clean." John sighed, there went his hope of a good night's rest.

"Why do we have to clean it?" Sherlock said, sounding offended, "I like it like this."

"I don't," John said firmly, "and we're going to get rid of it tonight."

"You can," Sherlock retorted, "but I'm not going to help you with it."

"Fine," John huffed, "I'm going to go and get Mrs Hudson and she's going to get you to join in."

Sherlock's eyebrow's soared upwards in good humour as John stormed out of the flat at stamped noisily downstairs.

"That went better than I thought it was going to go." Buttercup giggled.

"He suspects me, but he doesn't understand how I did it." Sherlock smiled back.

"And he definitely doesn't suspect me." Buttercup added.

"He won't suspect you until we tell him." Sherlock agreed.

"How many more days do you want to leave it?" Buttercup asked.

"A couple." Sherlock answered.

He was having too much fun to give it all up quite yet.

Besides, he had many more ideas that he and Buttercup hadn't tried out yet.

Tomorrow was going to be even better than today.


	5. Confusion

Spitting out a mouthful of glitter was what woke John up, otherwise he could have probably slept on until the late afternoon; he was so tired. He came to trying to rub the sparkly remnants from his tongue, but when this had little effect he eventually had to drag himself up off of the, evidently still glittery, living room floor and stumble sleepily into the kitchen to rinse out his mouth with a glass of water.

It was a slow process, well, pouring a glass of water wasn't as he was very good at that, but the repetition of sipping, swirling and spitting got very tedious. After a while John tried gargling to see if it was more effective. It wasn't. When he finally considered his mouth to be clean he allowed himself to step back and survey the cleaning that he had got done yesterday.

In the daylight it didn't look particularly spectacular.

Last night he had started with the kitchen, being the place that both he and Sherlock used the most other than the bathroom (and the state of the bathroom was even worse, he was going to leave that to Mrs Hudson if he could) and his bedroom could wait as he could sleep on the sofa or in an armchair after hoovering it for long enough.

At that point, unfortunately, John hadn't really grasped how big a job this was going to be, by three o'clock in the morning the kitchen looked ever so slightly more like a kitchen again. He could give it another go tomorrow evening, unless Mrs Hudson got there first, which would be appreciated.

John let out a loud sigh and rubbed his hand across his eyebrow, as he often did when he felt stressed, there was no way he would be able to go into work today. Not with all of this work he had to do right here, at home. Probably on his own too, unless Sherlock put in an appearance when he wasn't concentrating.

It was then, as his mind drifted to Sherlock, that John realised he hadn't seen his friend this morning. From all the excitement that had happened last night, well, it was the sort of thing that Sherlock would classify as excitement, John doubted he had managed to sleep last night.

He knocked on Sherlock's bedroom door and got no reply.

He called "Sherlock?" from outside the door and got no reply.

He opened the door slightly and repeated himself and still got no reply.

Frustrated, he barged into the room, glitter flying everywhere as he entered. Much to his surprise he found that Sherlock wasn't there.

"Great." John mumbled to himself, already feeling a bad mood settling in for the day. He didn't like being grumpy, but this was just one of those situations that you couldn't exactly feel happy about.

Cleaning wasn't one of his favourite jobs at the best of times.

WHERE ARE YOU? I'M NOT CLEANING THIS UP BY MYSELF.

-JW

Hoping that Sherlock would have the decency to do what he was told, for once, John decided there was no point in sitting around and waiting for Mrs Hudson to pop up and offer her cleaning services, he might as well alert her to the problem at hand right now.

As it was Sherlock who had caused the mess, it was likely she would just cluck around for a minute or two and then get stuck in. She didn't seem to like the idea of 'the boys' living in a tip, which was an opinion that John shared wholeheartedly.

She owned a hoover too.

...

Sherlock was sniffing at the armpit of one of the three dead men in Battersea bus station, watched on by the very much disgusted Sally Donovan, Anderson had doubtlessly sidled off to complain to Lestrade about the consulting detective being allowed in to steal the show, when his phone vibrated.

In an instant, phone was in hand and Sherlock was standing upright. To anyone who had not just been watching what he was doing, this would have seemed almost normal, the dead body at his feet did something to bring the mood down.

He checked the message. He and Buttercup had left the flat early that morning to get stuck in to the triple homicide Lestrade had been clogging up his (and John's) phone with yesterday. His welcome was grateful, as ever no one appeared to have a clue what was going on, or what they should be doing, so they were very lucky that Sherlock had decided to give them his time.

The only problem was that he had completely forgotten about the glittery mess he had left John with.

BATTERSEA BUS STATION, TRIPLE HOMICIDE. BUSY. COME IF YOU LIKE, MRS HUDSON CAN DEAL WITH THE GLITTER.

-SH

Before the text had sent completely, Sherlock was right back next to the body, scrutinising it carefully. This was the last one, the other two had been loaded into an ambulance and at this moment where on the way to some morgue, unfortunately not St. Barts, so that someone else could attempt do their job.

This one was different, the stale smell of sweat and the still slightly damp underarms of the man's shirt suggested physical exertion or fear. He wasn't overweight, clearly took care of himself and worked out in some way or another. Fear could be ruled out, the expression was one of surprise so it was highly unlikely that this man's last few moments were spent panicking at the thought of his fast approaching death.

No, it was much more likely that he had been running to try and catch a bus, which he had, evidently, missed. The three twenty pence pieces in his hand and the fifty pence piece that had been found close to the body also backed up this theory, one pound and ten pence was how much it cost to journey from the bus station to what had been discovered to be the nearest bus stop to the man's house.

It was then that Buttercup, who had been busy tickling behind Donovan's ear to see how she would react, fluttered back over to Sherlock and sat down on his wrist and crossed her legs.

"How's it going, Captain Holmes?" she asked, giggling slightly as a very flustered Donovan was still scratching at her ear.

"This one was an accident, Buttercup," Sherlock explained, "the other two were planning on going to the police to inform them of the murderer's past crimes...a couple more murders and drug dealing. I doubt he can be linked to those, though. He," Sherlock pointed to the body on the floor, "ran in on the confrontation while trying to make the 17:28 bus home."

"You do know your little _friend_ isn't here?" Donovan interrupted scathingly, "you're talking to yourself."

Sherlock looked up at her; she was staring down at him with eyes full of loathing. She didn't need to try to make it clear how much she detested him, but she made an effort all the same. It was only then that Sherlock realised he and Buttercup had been conversing at the same volume they had been using alone in 221B, he glanced down, and she was no longer on his wrist.

"We're all done here, thanks," he replied coldly, "I'll see Lestrade before we go."

He ignored her as he walked away, but he heard as she called after him, her voice hard, but curious and even slightly scared, "we?"

He needed to be more careful, or this was going to end up just like it did all those years ago. The first time. If anyone was going to stir up trouble for him, Sally Donovan would do so happily.

...

Ten minutes ago, John had replied to the text that his flatmate had sent him inviting him to a crime scene.

NO THANKS, COME BACK AS SOON AS YOU CAN, THIS COULD TAKE ALL WEEK.

-JW

If the reply wasn't to come from Sherlock Holmes, John would have been suspicious. But as it was his punctual friend would not have allowed such a large (in his eyes, anyway) amount of time to pass without replying, unless something had happened.

When his phone buzzed several minutes later, he snatched it up. First disappointment, then worry, crossed his mind when he read that the text was not from Sherlock, but from Lestrade.

SHERLOCK WAS TALKING TO HIMSELF TODAY, ON HIS WAY BACK NOW. COULD BE A PROBLEM.

-GL

SOMETIMES HE TALKS TO ME WHEN I'M NOT IN THE FLAT, HE COULD HAVE BEEN DOING THAT.

-JW

Lestrade's reply was enough to make John shiver, he had put all of that fairy nonsense out of his mind, what with all the glitter and everything. Something was wrong with his friend, and he didn't have a clue on how to approach it.

DOES HE REALLY CALL YOU BUTTERCUP?

-GL

John sighed.

NO, I'LL TALK TO HIM WHEN HE GETS BACK AND LET YOU KNOW. NOT TOO HOPEFUL.

-JW

He had no idea what to do. Being a doctor, this was not an especially good feeling and he disliked it greatly. As far as he could see Sherlock had not been behaving in an out of the ordinary way, for Sherlock, anyway, and it was frustrating to have reports from both Lestrade and Mycroft telling him that he was being even stranger than usual in his behaviour.

And it all came down to Buttercup the imaginary fairy.

One day, John thought to himself, he might find some form of amusing irony in this situation and laugh. One day was not now, though, and now his main concern was finding out exactly what was wrong with Sherlock Holmes.

And cleaning up the flat, of course. He couldn't forget that mammoth task either, even though Mrs Hudson had already been working her magic on the kitchen. John wasn't sure how she did it, but she was better at cleaning than him. It wasn't a particularly enthralling talent to have, but it was really very useful.

John was shaking his pillow cases out of the window when he heard the front door open and shut, followed by familiar footsteps as they made their way up the stairs. Sherlock was home. He immediately abandoned the task in hand and dashed out of the room to meet Sherlock before he could do anything to avoid a confrontation.

There was nothing Sherlock could do to avoid the oncoming collision either, as John ran straight into him before realising that he was stood in the kitchen doorway. He frowned down at John and stepped away, rubbing his chest gently (it had been quite a painful nose-meets-lung incident but he would never admit that it actually hurt).

"Are you alright, John?" he asked, taking in the anxious expression on John's face and ignoring nose massaging that was also going on before him.

"Yeah," John paused, "Are you alright, Sherlock? Because I got a text from Lestrade earlier saying that you were -"

A dismissive wave of the hand from Sherlock cut him off, "I know, I was talking to myself. It helps me to check that everything makes sense."

"So when did you start calling yourself Buttercup?" John demanded, hoping his voice sounded less serious than it did in his head. Judging by the way Sherlock froze at the sound of the name, it didn't.

Sherlock Holmes was speechless. This was, truly, one of life's rarest occurrences and even worried as he was John couldn't help appreciating the look on Sherlock's face as his mouth tried to form words, syllables or sounds, anything to get him out of this awkward situation.

"And Mycroft told me the other day," John continued, "that you had an imaginary friend when you were a kid. A fairy. Called Buttercup. He's worried, Sherlock, and so am I. What've you done to make yourself think that you've got that back?"

He pressed his lips together, hoping with his whole being that it wasn't drugs, but at the same time that it was. That way there would be a way out, a solution, and whatever was going would, eventually, stop.

"I..." Sherlock began, "I don't think you'll understand."

"Just tell me, I can cope." John replied.

"Not yet." Sherlock said, and with that he turned away and walked into his bedroom, closing the door behind him and ending the conversation.

John stared after him, not quite sure what to make of the encounter. If anything he felt more confused than he had done before they had talked, at least then he had his theory.

Now drugs didn't seem so likely. Not anymore.

Sherlock and John both stood in their separate rooms with absolutely no idea what they should do next. Everything was getting a bit too much and, while John had no clue as to what was going on, Sherlock was beginning to think that telling John about Buttercup's existence would be the best thing to do. He looked around, waiting for her to reappear, to give him advice, or something.

But she didn't.

And the longer he waited for her to come, the more he began to doubt her existence too.

Maybe John was right, maybe Mycroft had been right all along, maybe fairies didn't exist.

Maybe he was going mad.


	6. Mind Control

When Sherlock opened his eyes some time later he found himself sat cross-legged on his bed, hands pressed together and tucked under his chin. He also found that something was very wrong. That was quite a common occurrence and he was very used to the feeling of not knowing whether he had been sleeping lightly or thinking deeply.

Anyway, something was wrong.

The glitter was gone.

He sprung up, the glitter couldn't just be gone, it was there when he closed his eyes, so when he opened them again it should have still been there. He dropped to the floor, there was no glitter still embedded in the carpet, so John hadn't been in here with the hoover. Just to check this, Sherlock crawled around on his bedroom floor examining every square millimetre just to ensure he hadn't missed anything.

Further inspection closed even more doors, there was no sandwich or cup of tea left on his bedside table, so Mrs Hudson definitely hadn't been the one to get rid of all the glitter. His clothes in each and every drawer were still folded neatly with no evidence of being sifted through, so John had not been cleaning _or _performing a drugs bust. That left the only possible conclusion...

No.

"John?" he called, rushing out into the living room. Getting no answer he called again, "John?"

Still no reply.

And the glitter was gone from the living room too. A quick search of the rest of 221B proved both glitterless and Johnless, and Sherlock was beginning to get agitated.

The glitter couldn't just go, he had seen it, he and Buttercup together had covered every surface in the stuff leaving nothing untouched. There would be some remnant, something to show him that he wasn't making the whole thing up.

He must have missed something; it couldn't have all been in his head. He hadn't been ill, so he couldn't have dreamed it up, and he hadn't taken any drugs or drunk any alcohol, so he hadn't under any influence. That left the only alternative: it had to have been real.

This time he began an extremely thorough search that took almost three hours to complete. Not one speck of glitter, not one, did he find. John was not a very talented cleaner, and although Mrs Hudson was a good deal better she wasn't _that _good. She couldn't make over fifty litres of glitter just disappear.

At this, Sherlock shouted for Mrs Hudson and got no reply. He called again. Still no reply. He spun round, hoping that in a three hundred and sixty degree spin he would spot his fairy friend. Nothing.

It was strange, the feeling that was creeping around his body, clutching his heart and squeezing it slightly. He had felt it before, but at that time it hadn't bothered him. He had liked it, cherished it even, knowing what it was truly like to be alone.

Now it hurt, not having someone there, someone to talk to, or talk at. Someone to praise him, berate him, go along with him and, as well as anyone could, understand him.

He had grown compassionate, he had become caring, and even now that he knew Mrs Hudson or John could come back at any moment, appear through the door with shopping and some 'interesting' thing that had happened during their day he didn't want to be alone at this moment, not when he was doubting himself more than he had ever done before. More than he had done on Dartmoor, although he had deleted some of that fear thing as it was embarrassing to come across when he was searching through his mind for something that was stored close by. It also had the tendency to distract him as he remembered how cold his blood had felt, how his hands had shaken and how the sweat, the cold, cold sweat had seeped from his pores in a way he had never experienced before.

Buttercup had been there, he had seen her and he had spoken to her. John had reacted to her when she teased him, although he didn't know what she was. They had poured the glitter everywhere, gleeful as they imagined John's reaction, taking it in turns to imitate the look on his face when he first saw the state the flat had been turned into.

There wasn't any evidence to support those memories now, the glitter was gone, John was gone and there was certainly no fairy around. He wanted John to come back, he wanted John to make a cup of tea and sit in his favourite armchair. He just wanted John to be there so he didn't have to be so scared.

He knew that John would look after him. John would know what to do, he could tell him what was wrong, what was happening to him and soothe his troubled mind. The mind that might, even now, be failing.

Earlier he had concluded that it must have been real, that there was no way he could have made the whole thing up. He had dismissed being ill without a moment's thought, he didn't feel ill, so he wasn't. At the time it had been a logical enough conclusion.

But maybe he was ill.

Possibilities ran through his mind, not schizophrenia, that wasn't an option. He would know if he had that. Could he have some kind of brain disease? He froze. Brain disease. Without his brain, his wonderful brain, how could he function? Obviously anyone without a brain would die, but to be unable to deduce, to theorise...for him it would be impossible.

It would be the end of it.

This thought was too much for Sherlock, he needed John, John would be reassuring and John would be kind. He would tell Sherlock what he needed to hear. The truth. And he could go from there. He should not be considering the end of his detective days without John, without a proper diagnosis.

He fumbled in his pocket, hands shaking, however hard he tried he could not stop thinking about it, the chance that at this very moment his brain was shutting down, self destructing or poisoning itself. Phone finally in hand he managed to open the address book, the lack of content meant that John's name was already on the screen. He paused, took a deep breath, as John always seemed to suggest to people who were unnecessarily agitated or jumpy.

Sherlock could bring himself to think 'like me'. He wanted to remain separate from the rest of the world, like he used to be, although that seemed to be impossible now.

And then he pressed call.

... Ten minutes earlier ...

The park was virtually empty, and that was how John liked it, in the air that seemed cleaner than the rest of the busy city he lived in it was easier to think. And thinking was exactly what he needed to do at this moment in time. He had looked in on Sherlock just before he had left and his friend had been sat cross legged on the floor. At any other time this would have made John laugh, it looked so much like Sherlock was meditating that he would have had to take a picture and put it on his blog.

Not today.

Today he wondered what Sherlock was thinking about, how similar it was to what John was thinking and exactly what it was to do with that imaginary friend that he would not tell him. There was something wrong, that much was obvious, but John wasn't sure how wrong. Mycroft had been right to worry when he did, but all this fai- no, no, it wasn't to do with that. There had to be some other explanation, using things that actually existed on this planet, all John had to do was find it.

A dog walker greeted him but, too caught up in his own revere, John only responded with a flick of the hand. As she had been commenting on the fineness of the weather this was probably not the best thing to do. Still thinking, he completely missed the offended look that she shot him.

Drugs, no, alcohol, no, illness, no... Illness? John stopped walking, the immensity of this thought called for standing still. Sherlock could be ill, that was a possibility, but he was a doctor, if there were any symptoms he would have spotted them. Wouldn't he?

But this was Sherlock, and maybe Sherlock was harder to diagnose than regular human beings. Maybe the knowledge that your big brother was probably watching you via some form of CCTV made you more protective, more likely to hide the signs... Like a wild animal, John supposed.

John wasn't sure if Sherlock would consult him if he thought he was ill, he had never seen Sherlock be ill before so he didn't know what happened. Sherlock might've never been ill before. John doubted this though, he had hinted at a past that involved drug taking so at some point he must have...

The phone ringing interrupted John's thought process, he wasn't surprised to see that the caller ID read 'Sherlock'.

"Hello?" he said, bringing the phone up to his ear.

"John? John? Where are you?" Sherlock, who had clearly ignored John's hello, sounded very disconcerted.

"I went for a walk," John explained, "I'm in the park. What's the matter?"

"You need to come home." Sherlock had lost his usual sense of authority, he usually spoke like he was commanding John to do whatever it was he wanted him to do. Now he sounded desperate and, if anything else, worried.

"Why?"

Sherlock paused before replying. He didn't want to say what he was thinking because then that would make it real.

"I think I'm losing my mind." he eventually whispered into the phone.

Instantly John ended the call and, with the phone still in his hand, he turned and ran back the way he had just come, in the direction of Baker Street. He didn't stop running, not for one moment, not even when, as he overtook the dog walker who had greeted him just moments before, an overfriendly dog chased after him, jumping at his knees and barking playfully.

He found Sherlock sitting grimly at the kitchen table, staring at the door and waiting for him to enter. At first he didn't say anything so John decided it would be best to make them both a cup of tea while Sherlock readied himself to speak. He was probably working out exactly what he was going to say right now.

It was only when John sat down opposite him with a cup of tea in his hand that Sherlock spoke. John had also placed a mug in front of him, but for now he ignored it. Although being made the tea had felt somehow right he did not want it yet, now wasn't quite the right time for tea.

"Where did the glitter go?" Sherlock asked.

"Oh," John hadn't been expecting to hear that question, the things that had been running through his mind up until this moment had been far worse than that, "Mrs Hudson and I called in a professional cleaner in the end, we couldn't get rid of it all."

"Professional cleaner!" Sherlock repeatedd, "I didn't think of that, I never thought that Mrs Hudson would ask for help with cleaning."

"It was mainly my idea, I got fed up with having to empty the hoover so often." John admitted.

"So the glitter was here?" Sherlock persisted.

"The glitter was definitely here." John assured him.

Then something unexpected happened, Sherlock began to laugh. John stared at him in complete confusion, he didn't know what to do. Sherlock continued to laugh, he was so relieved, he wasn't going mad, he hadn't made it all up, he hadn't created false memories for himself.

The laughter eventually subsided when Sherlock's mind drifted to Buttercup, his memories of her seemed so real that he couldn't use them as proof for the breakdown of his brain. If only she would come back, then the horrible, niggling feeling in his chest would subside and he could get on with his life again. That would be good.

"Is everything ok?" John asked slowly.

Sherlock smiled back at him, "I think so."

"Are you going to tell me about this Buttercup, then?" John wasn't going to let the moment slide, not now Sherlock seemed so uncharacteristically happy. It seemed that he was ready to talk, and John hoped that this evaluation of his friend's body language had been correct.

Sherlock took in a deep intake of breath and then let it out slowly.

"I don't mind if there's anything bad involved," John said quickly, "I just want to know."

"We did agree to tell you eventually," Sherlock said, "although I can't say for certain if there actually is a 'we'."

"That's fine, it doesn't matter," John assured his friend, "we can figure that out later on. When you've told me what's been going on for the past few days."

Finally, Sherlock opened his mouth, ready, for the first time in his life to tell someone about the first real friend he had ever had. The first friend he ever had, he corrected himself, for she may not actually be real.

He took a sip of tea and begun.


	7. The End

"So it was all you?" John asked, Sherlock had just finished his very long monologue, starting from when he was eight and moving forwards slowly. John had relished the explanation, for once he was grateful to be treated like an idiot and being given the time to catch up with what his friend was saying.

"Yes." Sherlock replied. It was him. Just him. Although telling John everything had made him feel better, he had never understood 'a problem shared is a problem halved' before now, it had done nothing to relieve the heavy feeling in his chest. The inability to comprehend that he had tricked himself into believing something so illogical and ridiculous or that his mind was, even at this moment, deteriorating.

He hated not knowing things.

"And you thought that this... Buttercup was with you the whole time?" John persisted, the tale had been convincing, and Sherlock's descriptions vivid, but he could not bring himself to consider the possibility that what he was being told was the truth.

"Yes." Sherlock said.

"You bought the all of glitter yourself?" John asked.

"Buttercup did some of it," Sherlock answered, and then an idea hit him. Proof, if John provided the right answer, that Buttercup was real. That he was still in good health. That his detective days were not yet over. He interrupted John's 'hmming' to ask him, "and the thing you kept seeing out of the corner of your eye?"

"No." John still didn't want to let it in, the notion that fairies really could be really.

"You did see it though, I was watching you." Sherlock needed him to say yes, he had to say yes.

"I have no idea what it was." John said as calmly as he could, Sherlock was getting more and more agitated with every second that ticked by.

"But it could have been Buttercup; it could have been a fairy, couldn't it?" Sherlock continued.

"I think that counts as leading the witness. And I don't know what I saw." John really was beginning to get worried now, Sherlock seemed to be waiting for him to tell him that it was alright, that fairies were real and he wasn't going crazy. If only he could say that...

"Then _think._ You must be able to remember something." Sherlock was not going to let it drop, he wanted a real answer and he wanted it now "What you saw, was it yellow?"

John thought for a moment, trying to remember, "Yes," he said slowly, "I think so."

"That's it!" Sherlock cried, looking ecstatic, "that's Buttercup."

"No, Sherlock, listen to me. Fairies aren't real. They don't exist. I think it would be better if-" John never finished his sentence, he was interrupted by a whisper, his own name falling from Sherlock's lips.

"John?" Sherlock asked, not daring to look away from the tiny, yellow figure that was fluttering towards him, hair streaming messily behind her as if she had flown a long way. If. He couldn't be seeing things, John must be able to see her too.

"Yeah, I can see it too." John confirmed, his words barely audible as he whispered.

"_It?_" Buttercup, offended, cried, lifting Sherlock from his state of doubt in a split second, "Have you been taking lessons in manners from Sherlock?"

"Sorry," John said quickly, his heart thumping so powerfully in his chest he was not sure that he was actually making any sound. It was almost impossible to take in, he was talking to a fairy, "Are you-"

"Quiet, John," Sherlock interrupted, dismissing him with a wave of his hand. He turned his full attention to the fairy, "Where have you been?"

"Oh," Buttercup said, "in a cupboard under some stairs."

"What?" neither Sherlock nor John had any idea what she meant; they hadn't been expecting that as her answer.

"When we were at that crime scene at the bus station I could feel that there was another fairy around so I went to look around. I found her in the end, but she wasn't very happy. It turned out that I had only sensed her sense as she's been hiding in a cupboard for years. Her human told her that he couldn't believe she was real and it would probably best if she ceased to exist." Buttercup explained.

"There's more than one of you?" John gasped.

"Who?" Sherlock demanded.

"Of course there's more than one fairy in the world. We're less populous than humans, but not by too much," Buttercup stopped to think for a moment, "Black hair, funny parting. He was rude to you when we arrived."

"Anderson?" Sherlock was surprised; he would never have thought that Anderson had been affiliated with fairies. He seemed far too boring for such activities.

"Are you serious?" John let out a delighted little cry of laughter, "There is no way you could have deduced _that _Sherlock."

"I could've. In time." Sherlock, not wanting to get into an argument about his deductive abilities, quickly changed the subject, "Did she have a name?"

"Yeah, she didn't seem too pleased with it, though. Apparently Anderson isn't the most imaginative when it comes to names." Buttercup smiled to herself as both John and Sherlock's face simultaneously took on a thoughtful frown.

"Fairy?" Sherlock guessed.

"Andersonetta?" John said.

"Purple." Buttercup revealed.

"Purple?" Sherlock snorted, "He really is as useless as I give him credit for."

"I wonder where he got that from," John thought aloud, "he must have really liked the colour purple at some point in his life."

"A truly brilliant deduction, John," Sherlock said, "and from that theory you would have to assume that my favourite flower is a buttercup."

"I think it's a good point, actually," Buttercup said, "We'll have to see if we can find out next time we see him."

Sherlock wrinkled up his nose in disgust, "I might have to talk to him if I try to do that."

"You always talk to him." John pointed out, not bothering to pick Sherlock up on his substituting 'we' on the Anderson-Purple Investigation for 'I'.

"I always insult him," Sherlock corrected, "there's a difference."

"Right." John decided that he would rather not stay on the subject of insulting Anderson and moved onto something that was slightly more important, "Are we going to tell anyone else about Buttercup?"

"No!" Sherlock said quickly, "That would be a complete waste, think of the fun we can have. It's very entertaining to watch her confuse people. Lestrade would be a good place to start...maybe Mycroft..."

"And no one would believe you." Buttercup chipped in, "I'm happy just to talk to you two, and Purple when she arrives."

"When she arrives?" John echoed.

"I invited her to come and stay with us. I didn't think you'd mind." Buttercup said, "I thought she could be your fairy."

"My fairy? I don't know if I..." John wasn't sure what he should say. He knew next to nothing about fairies, and even less about fairies that had spent a substantial amount of time living with Anderson.

"Don't be an idiot, John, you have living proof that fairies exist right in front of you," Sherlock snapped, "so don't say that you don't think they exist."

"No, I wasn't going to say that." John said, "I was going to say that I don't really know what you're supposed to do with a fairy, do they need to eat?"

"Of course we do, but we sort ourselves out." Buttercup said.

"And sleeping?" John asked.

"Wherever they like." Sherlock answered.

"And what if this Purple is like Anderson?" John said. This was his final, and most important, concern with welcoming another fairy into the flat.

"She's not," Buttercup assured him, "you'll like her."

"How do you know that?" John asked.

"Well," Buttercup smiled, "you like Sherlock, don't you?"

"Most of the time." John answered tentatively, unsure of how Sherlock would take this. The man in question did not react, probably because he had left the room and was making himself (and John, because he was especially pleased with his reaction to Buttercup) a cup of tea.

"Then you'll be fine. Just treat her like a person." Buttercup said.

"Okay," John was relieved, that didn't seemed too hard, "I can manage that. Do you think Sherlock can?"

"We'll just have to wait and see. The world is full of surprises." Buttercup said, flitting off in the direction of the kitchen once she had finished, leaving John alone with his thoughts.

Afterwards, John thought that Buttercup could not have put it any better. The world certainly was full of surprises, he could never have expected to be sharing a flat with a self proclaimed genius and two fairies, but now he was. In the end the surprises turned out to be what he considered to be the best parts of his life so far.

He just hoped that this didn't mean all of the creatures of fantasy were real too, though, he could accept fairies. From what he had seen of them they were pretty harmless. Werewolves, on the other hand would be a different matter, altogether...

**...**

**That's the end of A Fairy Story, I hope you liked it. If you want to leave a review please do, but you don't have to if you don't want to.**


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